Enhancing the role of local governments across the humanitarian, development, peace and security nexus

Since the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 and the launch of the Global Alliance for Urban Crises, important progress has been made to recognize the role of local governments in crisis response. The complexity of crises in urban environments demands multi-scale, multi-faceted, cross-sectoral, and context-specific approaches beyond traditional humanitarian and development boundaries. The Global Alliance for Urban Crises (the Alliance) was set up as an inclusive platform bringing together local governments, built environment professionals, academics, and humanitarian and development actors, working to arrive at systemic change framed by the Urban Crises Charter [link]. Several other processes such as the Grand Bargain [link] and the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement (HLP) [link] have also called for a greater role of local governments to drive localization of humanitarian assistance and fast track transition to recovery, while sustaining peace where needed. To translate this recognition into an empowered role for local governments in the humanitarian, development and peace and security more is needed. The networking event will discuss the following questions, building off also concrete examples of good practice: 1. How to make all the global knowledge, tools, learning opportunities and good practices better accessible to local governments? 2. How to activate better partnerships between local governments, humanitarian/development actors and communities using area-based approaches? 3. How to ensure better access to financial and human capacity for local governments and local service providers